An Idea That Sticks: Another Plunger-Protected Lane Goes Permanent

Two of 2017’s three cheekiest guerrilla bike lanes have now been made permanent.

The Providence Journal reported Tuesday that the City of Providence, R.I., has taken a local group’s stunt to heart and started installing flexible plastic posts where a row of plungers had been set up, separating a “floating” parking lane from a curbside bike lane on downtown’s Fountain Street.

Similar plunger-bike-lane stunts this year came in Wichita and Omaha. Wichita, too, made its short stretch of plunger protection permanent two weeks later.

Parking-protected bike lanes have become common across the United States. But practices differ on whether to include plastic posts. Posts cost about $60 apiece, including installation time, but they make it more obvious where people are (and aren’t) supposed to park their cars.

The Journal reported that the new posts can be removed during the winter, if necessary, in order to keep the street plowed.

Martina Haggerty, a projects manager with the Providence planning department, said the city had always planned to improve the Fountain Street bike lane “incrementally” but that the plunger stunt “certainly gave a new sense of urgency to it, which is great.”

“I think it’s a really effective way of bringing about change and bringing things to the attention of officials,” she said.

Maureen Persico, a lead organizer of the San Francisco action, said direct, fun local actions like these can be powerful during a time of national political turmoil because they can open a “little crack” in people’s walls of cynicism or isolation.

“It’s cheap, and it’s pretty easy to get people together,” she said. “And there’s a lot of people interested in the issue. Everybody knows somebody who’s been hit by a car.”